An atom is the smallest unit of matter that defines the chemical elements.

Every solid,
liquid, gas and even plasma are made up of atoms. The size of atoms are very small. The
components of the atom had been discovered in 1911. The atom consisted of subatomic
particles called protons and electrons. An atom contains a small nucleus which is surrounded
by a number of electrons. The nucleus of an atom contains a number of protons that equals
the number of electrons. This model of the atom is referred to as the nuclear atoms.
The nuclear atom is a relatively recent idea. In 1911, it was not clear how these
protons and electrons were arranged within the atom. In the early years of the twentieth
century, Joseph J. Thomson (1856 1940), the English physicist who had discovered the
electron in 1897, pictured the atom as the plum-pudding model. In Thomsons view, there
was no nucleus at the center of an atom. He suggested that in this model, the electrons and
protons are uniformly mixed throughout the atom.

The plum-pudding model was discredited when the New Zealand physicist Ernest
Rutherford (1871 1937) published experimental results that the model could not explain.
Rutherford tested Thomsons hypothesis by devising his gold foil experiment. If the plumpudding model was correct, then the mass of the atom was spread throughout the atom.
Then, if he shot high velocity alpha particles at an atom, then the alpha particles should pass
through with little deflection. Alpha particles are positively charged particles emitted by some
radioactive materials. He and his co-workers directed a beam of alpha particles at a thin metal
foil made of gold. Most alpha particles were observed to pass straight through the gold foil,

which would be expected if the atoms in the gold were like a plum pudding. But, a few of the
particles were scattered at large angles and some of the particles rebounded almost directly
backwards as though it had hit something solid.

These deflections were not consistent with Thomsons model. After tracing many
particles and examining the patterns, Rutherford was forced to discard the plum-pudding
model and concluded that the only way for the alpha particles could be deflected backwards
was if most of the mass and positive charge in an atom were concentrated in a central nucleus
about 10,000 times smaller than the atom itself. Rutherford concluded that the positive
charge, instead of being distributed thinly and uniformly throughout the atom, was
concentrated in a small region called the nucleus. Thus he developed the planetary model of
the atom which put all the protons in the nucleus and all of the negative charge was held in
the electrons orbited around the nucleus like planets around the sun.

Niels Bohr (1885 1962), the Danish physicist, came to work in the laboratory of
Ernest Rutherford. He realized that the planetary model wasnt quite right. By all rules of
classical physics, the motion of the electrons in the Rutherfords model was unstable and
should have an extremely short lifetime. According to classical mechanics and
electromagnetic theory, any charged particle moving on a curved path emits electromagnetic
radiation. The orbiting electrons should give off energy and eventually spiral down into the
nucleus, making the atom collapse or the electrons could be knocked out of position if a
charged particle passed by. To remedy the stability problem, Bohr modified the Rutherfords
model by requiring that the electrons move in orbit of fixed size and energy. The energy of an
electron depends on the size of the orbit and is lower for smaller orbits. Radiation can occur
only when the electron jumps from one orbit to another. The atom will be completely stable
in the state with the smallest orbit, since there is no of lower energy into which the electron
can jump.
Bohrs starting point was to realize that classical mechanics by itself could never
explain of the atoms stability. A stable atom has a certain size so that any equation describing
it must contain some fundamental constant or combination of constants with a dimension of
length. The classical fundamental constant cannot be combined to make a length. Bohr
noticed, however, that the quantum constant formulated by the German physicist Max Planck
has dimensions which, when combined with the mass and charge of the electron, produce a
measure of length. Numerically, the measure is close to the known size of atoms. This
encouraged Bohr to use Plancks constant in searching for a theory of the atom.
Planck had introduced his constant in 1900 in a formula explaining the light radiation
emitted from heated bodies. According to classical theory, comparable amounts of light
energy should be produced at all frequencies. This is not only contrary to observation but also
implies be absurd result that the total energy radiated by a heated body should be infinite.

Planck postulated that energy can only be emitted or absorbed in discrete amounts, which he
called quanta. The energy quantum is related to the frequency of the light by a new
fundamental constant, h. When a body is heated, its radiant energy in a particular frequency
range is, according to classical theory, proportional to the temperature of the body. With
Plancks hypothesis, however, the radiation can occur only in quantum amounts of energy. If
the radiant energy is less than the quantum of energy, the amount of light in that frequency
range will be reduced. Plancks formula correctly describes radiation from heated bodies.
Plancks constant has the dimensions of action, which may be expressed as units of energy
multiplied by time, units of momentum multiplied by length, or unit of angular momentum.
Using Plancks constant, Bohr obtained an accurate formula for the energy levels of
the hydrogen atom. He postulated that the angular momentum of the electron is quantized. He
assumed that otherwise electron obey the laws of classical mechanics by traveling around the
nucleus in circular orbits. Because of the quantization, the electron orbits have fixed sizes and
energies. The orbits are labelled by an integer, the quantum number n.
With his model, Bohr explained how electrons could jump from one orbit to another
only by emitting or absorbing energy in fixed quanta. For example, if an electron jumps one
orbit closer to the nucleus, it must emit energy equal to the difference of the energies of the
two orbits. Conversely, when the electron jumps to a larger orbit, it must absorb a quantum of
light equals in energy to the difference in orbits.
Bohrs model of the atom revolutionized atomic physics. The Bohr model consists of
four principles. First, electrons assume only certain orbits around the nucleus. Second, each
orbit has an energy associated with it. Third, light is emitted when an electron jumps from a
higher orbit to a lower orbit and absorbed when it jumps from a lower to higher orbit. And

forth, the energy and frequency of light emitted or absorbed is given by the difference
between the two orbit energies.
With these conditions, Bohr was able to explain the stability of atoms as well as the
emission spectrum of hydrogen. According to Bohrs model, only certain orbits were allowed
which means only certain energy are possible. These energies naturally lead to the
explanation of the hydrogen atom spectrum. Unfortunately, Bohrs model worked only for
hydrogen.

http://www.iun.edu/~cpanhd/C101webnotes/modern-atomic-theory/Bohr-model.html
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/bohr_atom.html